Managing troubled and troubling students using child guidance principles and techniques

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Thursday, January 2, 2014

Teachers, Take Charge of Your Emotions

RET, or Rational-Emotive Thinking is a popular model of behavior modification that teaches how we can get along
better with ourselves by means of
disciplining our thoughts and emotions; with self-disciplined and balanced
thoughts and emotions our behavior has no other choice but to fall in line.
According to this school of thought, our mental state, either positive (e.g. feeling enthusiastic and
hopeful) or negative (e.g. feelings
of frustration and mortification) do not directly link with the factual event
or what happened (e.g. classwasunruly), but they link directly with how we think about what happened (e.g. “I cannot
control my class”). For instance, thinking that we do not have the skills to
control an unruly class can easily lead to feelings of discouragement and
giving up on students. Conversely, believing that although we had a rough day,
we do have the skills and endurance to get better behavior from children takes
us primarily to feeling both excited and challenged (e.g. “What a lousy day I
had today! Okay, what did I miss? What do I need to do differently tomorrow
morning so that I can deliver more motivating and engaging lessons?”). RET is
both empowering (i.e. we are in
charge of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions) and action-oriented. About the latter, RET teaches us that, if we do
not like how we are feeling about our class, the first thing we need to do is
to change the way we think about the
class, for example, perceptually shifting from “unruly class” to “unmotivated
class.” Simply put, RET helps us focus on alternative ways of perceiving and
interpreting old problems, reminding us that we are the ones responsible not
only for what we think, but for how we feel and what we do in response to what
we think. Even when we feel dissatisfied with our unruly class, we do not need
to feel distraught or discouraged by the situation. Dissatisfaction should lead
to changes (e.g. in teaching style,
strategies, and/or planning), not to emotional turmoil and low self-confidence.

Wrapping up,
according to RET, we achieve emotional health by learning to think more the way
we want to feel and think less the way that we do not want to feel. Consistent with rational-emotive principles,
here are some guidelines to help us feel vibrant and energized from Monday
mornings to Friday evenings:

1.Stop blaming yourself for errors and
mistakes. Tackle errors and mistakes by using more self-correction (i.e.corrective
thoughts)and less self-blame and
self-condemnation.

2.Consistently monitor your thoughts, so that
you can catch distraught or irrationalthinking (i.e. thoughts that cannot
be supported by evidence), switching it into better-adjusted rational thinking (i.e. thoughts that
can be supported by evidence). Honestly but fairly, examine your thought
processes so that you clarify your beliefs about difficult situations such as
an unruly class or a habitually disruptive student. Mentally dispute any self-defeating belief that is putting you down. For example, ask
yourself, “Where is the proof that I’m such a failure as a teacher? How can
this belief be disproven? Where does it say that teaching needs to be
hassle-free?” Sensitivity to our feelings, both positive and negative, through
self-awareness of those specific thoughts that trigger the feelings is
considered a preventive tool in avoiding troubling emotions.

3.When we believe something, we act as
if it true. The old saying, “Whether we believe we can or we cannot do
something, we are right!” fits perfectly into the rational-emotive model.
Changing our thoughts and beliefs allows our behavior to change, and our
behavior will change much quicker if we give ourselves a strategy or a plan to
reach our goal.

4.When a disruptive student or a
difficult class troubles us, our first choice is to decide how we will react.
For instance, we can treat the child either as a threat or as a challenge;
perceiving the child as a threat generates mostly feelings of inadequacy and
frustration. On the other hand, perceiving the child’s behavior as a challenging puzzleto solve will revitalize and motivate us. Reframe the situation with the student or class so that you shift
perceptually from “What a pain in the shoulder this child is!” to “I’m amazed
at how challenging this child is!”

To conclude, we can increase our sense of self-control and
self-confidence by checkingour feelings periodically and analyzing our
reactions (behavior) in response to those feelings. Do our feelings and
behaviors align with self-empowering
thinking or with self-defeatingthoughts? When feeling down, go deeper,
answering, “Am I expecting the worst of this situation?” or “Am I predicting a
disaster?” Debate any pessimistic thinking early (e.g. “Where is the evidence
for my belief?”); the sooner we recognize and debate irrational thinking and
beliefs, the better we feel later on. Think both of alternative waysof
interpretingthesituation and of as many solutions aspossible for the situation. You can answer, “How else could I think
about this?” or “What other points of view are there?” Most importantly,
always, and I do mean always, hold
yourself, not the situation or student, fully responsible for any kinds of
feelings that you may have. Your greatest power is the power to choosehow you are
going to feeland to reactto the situation: threatened or
challenged; burned down or re-energized. So, choose wisely; choose to feel
challenged and re-energized.

Related Reading...

Essentials of Emotional Communication for Reaching the Unreachable Student: Where Do I Start? What Do I Say? How Do I Do It? To preview this book on Amazon, click here.

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Introducing "The Psycho-Educational Teacher"

Psycho-education is an enhanced behavior management approach based on the principle that, no matter how severe a behavior problem is, all children can grow socio-emotionally and can learn how to self-control behavior. Psycho-educational teachers believe that socio-emotional growth takes place when children understand the role that emotions play in their school difficulties. This therapeutic approach aims at helping children understand how their troubling feelings and emotions influence their behavior. A teacher trained in psycho-education applies skilled child guidance techniques to help children develop effective coping strategies, self-control of behavior, and social problem-solving skills. Psycho-educational principles and techniques include cognitive (thinking), affective (feelings), and behavioral aspects. This innovative blog is a must read for teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents with an interest in psycho-educational theory and methods to help children with recurrent behavior problems.